They say one must not speak ill of the dead. That’s stupid. Of course we must, especially if they were vile pieces of abusive shit that harmed many like Kissinger, Hitler, Mulroney, Ralph Klein, etc. (the list is long) and if they are such turds and still alive, like Trump/Biden and their genocidal Christian Zionist Evangelicals, Netanyahu and his racist mass murder gov’t, Danielle Smith, Steve Harper, Jason Kenney, Gwyn Morgan, Epstein, etc. (the list is also long).
The type and number of people praising Rex Murphy is telling, shows how thieving, hateful, dishonest, racist, selfish, bullying, and or propagandized and lazy (it’s harder to think for self than to believe paid lies by shills for polluters and hate/rage farming politicians) many Canadians are.
@StefanGreybeard:
Rex Murphy was just the kind of human stain that Canadian media loves to give a voice to.
He fought against indigenous rights, denied LGBTQ rights, & wholeheartedly supported Palestinian genocide, all while denying climate change.
I hope the devil has a special place for him.
@ABDanielleSmith May 9, 2024:
Alberta’s government and her people Hey Big Oil Dildo Danielle, how dare you speak for me! I did not give you my consent. Rex Murphy was a paid big oil propagandist, con liar, vile hateful cruel white supremacist, genocide enabler, and bigot, an evil self-serving spewer of disinformation to hate and rage farm and divide Canadians. He was a lot like you. Murphy joins Lyin’ Brian Mulroney and Killing Kissinger. Yes, he had a sense of humour, but decency and being humane needs more than that. Good riddance. Earth breathes easier now. send our condolences and love to the family, friends, and colleagues of Rex Murphy. …
Bev@Garnet_2203:
He was a bully
ricardus lordhighexecutioner@ricarduslordhi1:
He was as intellectual as a house fly.
Joe@treepanda33:
Good riddance wish he kicked off sooner.
John van Stelten@JohnvanStelten1:
He was an arse!!!
@ColonelAngus17:
The news keeps wanting us to quit calling Rex Murphy a piece of shit.
#GladHesDead
#BetterOffWithout
#OnwardAndUpward
The more of this generation dies off the better we are.
Joe@treepanda33:
Lmfao, he was in #Fact a #Bigot fuck. #ROTRex
Jack Todd@jacktodd46:
It’s ironic that the Cons want to dismantle the CBC when the CBC has inflicted Canada with its two most incoherent, bile-spewing right-wing idols, Don Cherry and Rex Murphy.
@offroadartist:
don’t forget O’Leary!
@josiu949:
Absolutely. Mr. Murphy, in particular, really thrived at biting the hand that had fed him.
@YourGirlJ111:
Her people do not. You don’t speak for Albertans. You speak for TBA/PP/Harper and the extreme right.
Julia Ann Landry@Jewelanland:
Rex Murphy was also a prolific RACIST
Lund@Lund17765894:
Isn’t it amazing that Rex, so erudite, could deteriorate into a pompous right-wing propagandist? Brain worm? By the way, Barbie, CBC is still welcome in my home. And I’d like to know what a “heritage Canadian” is supposed to be.
Doud Dougerson:
Rex Murphy was not an intellectual. He was a radio show host and opinion piece writer. He was not particularly well educated (like a lot of other Rhodes Scholars) and contributed nothing to the advancement of scholarship in any area of human life.
None of those facts are insults. But thinking and talking about things is not sufficient to make you an intellectual. He was a glorified guy next to you at the bar, and I suspect that’s exactly how he would prefer to be remembered.
@rabbleca:
The legacy of Rex Murphy, marked by glowing eulogies, omits his significant ties to the fossil fuel industry through lucrative speaking engagements.
Clara McNee:
Thanks for reminding people. That should be done for all that think they serve the public. The right serve only the right and no one else while every other party is inclusive. Mind you the right are the noisiest so they get the ‘oil’ and even that doesn’t quiet their outrage. A pipeline finally and they’re still crying the blues with, of course, their hands out for more ‘pudding’. You know, … Trudeau.
Swimming upstream against a torrent of treacle: Rex Murphy considered by Tom Sandborn, May 15, 2024, Rabble
The eulogizing of the late Rex Murphy is glossing over important parts of his legacy, such as while he was promoting fossil fuels in the public square, he was also receiving big pay checks from that industry in the form of speaking fees.
Rex Murphy died last week, and all the usual suspects are sad. The print, online and broadcast media have been awash with over-the-top encomia, (a pretentious word Murphy would have used) many from the fever swamps of the Canadian right and a few from more middle of the road observers. All portray him as Canada’s favorite Newfie, a bold commentator on politics and culture, a fearless opponent of everything “woke” and a loveably colourful character.
I beg to differ. But first, a few selections from the tsunami of treacle that has swept across the nation marking the death.
Many who came to praise Murphy echoed variations on fellow Maritimer and comic Mark Critch’s comment. Critch told the CBC “You might not agree with what Rex had to say, but oh, boy, could he ever say it.”
Right wing podcaster and celebrity Jordan Peterson told the National Post that “He was the kind of man who saw exactly what was plain for all to see, and was unforgiving in his proclivity to point all that obviousness out to the men and women who refuse to acknowledge the blinding beams obscuring their own vision.”
“Alberta’s government and her people send our condolences and love to the family, friends, and colleagues of Rex Murphy. Canada will never have a voice like his again- as a proud Newfoundlander he championed what he believed to be right for our country and was always a good and true friend to Alberta. Rest in peace, dearest Rex,” wrote Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
And former Prime Minister Stephen Harper weighed in, as well, saying “Rex Murphy was one of the most intelligent and fiercely free-thinking journalists this country has ever known.”
We are often counseled to speak no ill of the dead, advice that has never really made sense to me.Ha ha, me too! What better time than the death of a public figure to assess their impact on public life? That said, I should say that my negative assessment of Murphy is not based on any personal animus. The one time he interviewed me on CBC’s Cross Country Check-Up, he was perfectly amiable and civil. Nevertheless, I cannot bring myself to join in the chorus of praise that has followed his death.
Murphy built much of his public persona on a kind of Maritime minstrel show performance, a guy with a Newfoundland accent who knew big words! It would take all day to unpack just how meretricious and insulting that act was, and how steeped its success was in anti-Newfie stereotypes. Suffice it to say that the schtick was mildly entertaining on first encounter but got old and boring very soon.
And can we stop pretending there is anything brave about using a perch at the centre of Canadian media to decry social justice and the environmental movement, and to uncritically endorse the world destroying fossil fuel industries that are blackening the world’s skies and disrupting global climate? Murphy served the petroleum industry well and was well paid by Big Petro for his services, payment that came primarily in the form of fat speaking fees. This cozy relationship and the conflict of interest it represented should, at the very least, have been acknowledged in every pro-pollution column he published and every time he hosted a CBC show that discussed petroleum industry and climate change concerns.
The embarrassingly effusive response to Murphy’s death will subside soon enough, but this does need saying. Rex Murphy was a well-paid propagandist for one of the most harmful industries in Canada, and a defender of all the prejudices and harms that the “woke” movements he so despised try to remedy. Perhaps his headstone should read “Rex Murphy, Rest in Profit.”
I come not to praise Rex Murphy, for his evil will live long after him by Markham Hislop, May 12, 2024
If there was one “intellectual” who most muddied Canadian thinking about the future of energy, it was Murphy
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden will raise import tariffs on China’s electric vehicles by 400 per cent, according to the Wall Street Journal. My inbox and timelines are now full of Americans pondering what Biden’s move means for the global economy, legacy automakers, climate change, and the fate of human civilization generally. But no Canadians. Why is that?
The easy answer is that Canada is an insular, provincial country content to be an economic and intellectual hinterland to the United States. Our elites, our leaders, are too busy squabbling about the latest petty internal issue to worry about changes in the broader world in which we live.
Not true, you object, what about the current protests over atrocities in Palestine or the escalating angst over climate change? Aren’t they proof that Canadians are plugged in? Well, exceptions abound to any rule. But when it comes to my beat, the global energy transition, the easy answer still holds true.
Why aren’t Canadians pondering what Biden’s need to protect legacy automakers means for Canada’s industry, the world’s 13th largest auto manufacturing sector? Or what it means for the future of petroleum, the feedstock that powers the internal combustion engine, given that Canada is the world’s fourth largest crude oil producer?
I return time and again to this frightening quote from Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis NV (parent company of Chrysler and Jeep) and a grizzled veteran of the global auto industry:
“If the automotive industry doesn’t move, this industry will disappear under the offensive of the Chinese industry…The magnitude of the Chinese offensive, the competitiveness that they can demonstrate and the massive arrival of all of their best carmakers is a significant change.”
Disappear under the offensive of the Chinese industry? Can Tavares seriously be arguing that the manufacturing sector at the heart of Western industrialization for the past century is about to be engulfed by the industrial tsunami that is “made in China”?
I read Tavares’ quote to Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, on a recent Energi Talks podcast and asked him to respond. His reply is chilling: “Well, that’s the end of the interview because what else can I add to that? He’s hit the nail on the head.”
Why isn’t the China threat front page news? Why aren’t policymakers debating the issue in legislatures across the country? More importantly, for our purposes today, why aren’t Canadian journalists and news organizations shouting this from the rooftops?
Rex Murphy, that’s why.
The most polarizing writer in modern Canada died on Thursday at the age of 77. Some remembered him fondly as a leading liberal intellectual of the sixties and seventies, a worthy successor to CBC radio icon Peter Gzowski on the Cross Country Check Up show. But most focused on his years as a shill for the Alberta oil and gas industry and his headlong plunge into the murky world of alt-right conspiracy theories that included his hatred of all things Trudeau.
Murphy in his later years was unreadable, especially on energy topics.
His Postmedia columns were CAPP (Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers) press releases regurgitated as Trumpian word salads. He had nothing new to say, but if paid by the pound for his polysyllabic verbosity, he died a rich man. He was, however, widely read and roundly praised by the empty-headed “thought leaders” of the Calgary Petroleum Club and other dens of business iniquity across the country. No more damning thing will ever be said of poor Rex.
Allow me to try: if there was one writer, one “intellectual” who most muddied Canadian thinking about the future of energy, it was Rex Murphy.
By the time the Murphy clones in Canada’s news media notice what’s really going on in Washington, or more importantly what’s going on in Beijing, it will be too late.
Which is only fitting because Murphy missed it entirely.
Dennis M…..ski@ontwoopie:
Rex sold his soul to oil and gas, and all their misinformed talking points. He dried up long ago
@dankellar:
in the pages of the national post, rex murphy called me an “ignoramus” and defended his racist buddy christie blatchford.
these two writers share the same ugly legacy in death: anti-indigenous, white supremacist, racist nationalism.
@matttomic:
Rex Murphy spent the last chapter of his life denying climate science, villifying LGBT people, and denying the existence of systemic racism from his pulpit as a national columnist. He was a bully and a villain.
How’s that? Respectful enough? Enough decorum?
In addition to making Canadian discourse a worse, uglier, coarser place, let’s not forget that he also made untold millions of dollars on the side licensing his likeness to Party City for halloween decorations
@daleethompson:
I’ll say this about Rex Murphy:
The guy who I studied & revered in journalism school isn’t the same guy who lived the last years of his life as a bitter, petty & embarrassing stain on Canadian media.
I said what I said, doesn’t matter if he’s gone now, his legacy was tarnished.
Joe of Coho Heaven@IHateCold1234:
Never in my life did I ever believe Rex Murphy could make me laugh but here we are…..
SomeOldNobody@Kharsnim:
Rex Murphy became a caricature of himself just so he could polish Poilievres ballsack. Celebrating the death of a vandalous opinioneer isn’t a problem. He earned the scorn he’s getting through his hyper-partisan disinformation. He shat on his own legacy years ago. He earned this.
All my comments reveal is that my opinion of him dropped off a fucking cliff when he embraced platforming CPC lies.
If you want people to say nice things about you after you’re dead, don’t become a raging asshole in life. … All he did was lie last few years. I don’t have a nationally reaching forum upon which I’m paid to publish my opinions, shitty or not. … How is my celebrating the death of a fucking fascist-platforming cunt the crystalization of all societal ills?
Adam Smith X@miguelr21640398:
Not me.
@GayleMcmartin:
Bought and paid for by Big Oil.
@LaurieAdkin:
Rex Murphy was a paid propagandist for the fossil fuel industry and the far right. Let’s not confuse what he did with journalism or the role of a public intellectual–despite the efforts of @postmedia et al. to paint him as a Canadian icon.
Regthesaurus, as he was known around here. Why people think the listing of synonyms is a sign of erudition is beyond me. @CBC
Hailey Heartless@SadistHailey:
The dead don’t know what’s being spoken about them, or if they do, they don’t care. I’m not going to venerate a man who dedicated the last years of his life trying to hurt transgender people and other vulnerable people. The world is better without Rex Murphy in it.
@MrVinland:
… Rex Murphy wasn’t a resident of our province. He lived on the main land because he sought out opportunities to express his consistently racist and homophobic views to a wider audience. He was a bad person.
@BananyaTanya:
I mean it’s not cool to wish anyone dead but I’m glad to be alive when Rex Murphy is not. Bye bitch.
@kevusaurelius:
Oh do not fret he was a horrible grifter – and he grifted on stupid people’s hard earned money with his buddy Jordan. The World is less big headed, ugly, and horrible today.
@HenriAGS:
Rex Murphy was a symptom. The real cancer in #cdnmedia was/still is PostMedia
I’ve nothing good to say about a single writer in that org so I’ve said little about Rex Murphy
I’ll say this though: I look forward to when PostMedia follows him to the heap of yesteryear #cdnpoli
@mikebaird17:
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure,”
@zchamu:
Live your life in such a way that when you die, people aren’t talking about all the harm you did.
The Lefty Canadian Radical @Tori_TLCR:
Huh.
I thought Rex Murphy was an animated corpse for the longest time.
… Oh well. Good riddance.
Shockingly Un-Meteored Rewhan | UN RESOLUTION 377A@_Rewhan:
They say never to speak ill of the dead, only good.
Rex Murphy is dead.
Good.
Just an absolutely atrocious right-wing political commentator in Canada
Walking Eagle News@TheEagleist:
BREAKING: Hateful old prick dead
MartinNeimoeller@neimoeller:
I’m fully expecting a new right wing punditry column to appear #FromBeyondTheGrave with Rex Murphy’s ghost as edited by Satan
@R11RT:
Not nice to speak ill of the dead, but good riddance.
@BernieKuzzy:
Rex Murphy thought it was ok to kill horses & threaten women.
@kevusaurelius:
What a big headed ugly man through and through. And a Zionist who supported killing kids. The World is safer.
KS-Canada@CanadaKlr:
Never taking a day off to stop being a vile hating C of a human… #RexMurphy
Nora Loreto@NoLore:
“Murphy’s analysis demonstrates the dangerous level of ignorance that has managed to infest the brains of many Canadians.”
A column I wrote 12 years ago when Murphy took aim at Idle No More.
Joe Emersberger@rosendo_joe:
As a Canadian I know who Rex Murphy, Margaret Wente, Lorne Gunter , Barbara Amiel, Claire Hoy and Andrew Coyne are. Haven’t read any of them in many years. Yesterday’s B-list Empire propagandists
@PeebsY0:
Rex Murphy will be remembered as a fascist provocateur.
David Schulze@DavidSc67360929:
Rex Murphy’s last public appearance was to join a convicted criminal in welcoming an anti-Semitic Putin-loving conspiracy theorist to Alberta. I assume he was prepared to be remembered that way.
@MilhousHouten:
Rest in piss Rex
@rose_jlab:
rest in piss rex murphy
@AngelaSterritt:
Rex Murphy was an outspoken climate change & racism denier & acutely hostile to Indigenous rights. For 21 yrs he worked as a journalist at CBC’s Cross Country Checkup. Canadian media chose to platform him while denying BIPOC opportunities because they may be “biased.”
This is not just his legacy but the continued behaviour and conditions of legacy media.
Dethe Elza@dethe:
He was a horrible person AND had an annoying voice. I never understood his appeal.Became many humans are inhumane and unappealing.
Amir Attaran (@email hidden; JavaScript is required)@profamirattaran:
“Sharp-witted intellectual?” Um, no.
Not to be rude, but a guy who drops out of his degree because he finds footnoting too hard—not an “intellectual”.
Josh Long@JoshTL:
He really should’ve been fired. Anyone else would’ve.
Funny how advocating for oil is unbiased and advocating for social justice is biased.
Gordon Hill/@ChaplainQueerly@ChaplainQueerly:
Rex Murphy & Jordan Peterson are two angry old men whose opinionated bile is dangerous because of who, and what, they appeal.
Woke Means Not Asleep@TheGentYYC:
[2024] I understand “respect for the dead” but just like with Antonin Scalia’s death I’ll not stand idly by as #RexMurphy is lionized by a fawning, lazy press. He was an amoral, bought-and-paid-for scoundrel who disinformed Canadians on climate for decades & he hurt our country #cdnpoli
[2021] Your regular reminder that #RexMurphy takes money from oil/gas while lying for literally decades to Canadians about the #ClimateEmergency. Please see this peer report on the Post’s serial misinformation campaign . #CdnMediaFailed #cdnpoli https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108
Quinn Henderson@QuickReboot:
The only time I’ve ever been filled with enough moral indignation and rage to write a letter to the editor is when I had the misfortune of reading Rex Murphy’s vile “Canada isn’t racist” op-ed written at the height of the George Floyd protests. So kudos for that, I guess.
Barry Mcokner@manbat1269:
Rex Murphy was a hateful old crank who once wrote that systematic racism did not exist in Canada. Others may remember a more noble legacy for him, I sure don’t. To me he was a symbol of everything that was wrong with Canadian journalism
derek sayer@coastsofbohemia:
Good riddance. A poisonous little man.Precisely! To me Murphy was a lot like poisonous little man ex illegal aquifer frac’er Encana CEO Gwyn Morgan.
@dumpsterdoggo:
If the dead didn’t want me to speak ill of them, maybe they shouldn’t have been a piece of shit in life.
@wsilverwings2:
I try not to say it but the world is a better place now
@dustbobgod;
Rex Murphy was a lazy pseudo intellectual who confused a thesaurus for a philosophy text
@bananafartidiot:
A misinformed rage farmer. …
@acharmingbore:
ugh crap i missed the rex murphy is dead party anyway good riddance!
@england_kevin:
agree – he was a demented, hateful old fool
@crankycartoons:
Rex Murphy, pictured here in his prime, was a textbook example of boomer socialism and hypocrisy. He cried for younger generations to pull up their bootstraps and get off his lawn, yet Rex, in the end, was a true symbol of the very entitlement he condemned. #RockBottom
@JamesClay1917:
Tributes to Rex Murphy only expose the political parochialism and reactionary nature of their authors. The man was a fool, dressed up and trotted out to defend ignorance, war and finally, genocide with lots of words. History will forget him, and his admirers.
Sorry, but… @citzan:
Rex Murphy — one of the vilest Zionists in Canada (among being the vilest of so much other scum) — is no more. A good omen?
@too_beaver May 10, 2024:
… Rex Murphy was a white supremacist who we are happy no longer breathes
Cis & Woke Drew @disruptfascism:
The world became a better place when he left it
that nerdy girl@leeleedutchaski:
I hope Canada never has a voice like his againMe too. Horrid nasty man. Unfortunately, we have Pierre Picklehead handled by Steve Harper, both just as evil and vile white supremacist and disinformation rage farmers, but more dangerous because Pierre’s quite stupid and seeks worship from criminals.
CHECK_News:
The National Post is reporting that Rex Murphy, the pro-oil pundit who was at once the steady stickhandler of a national call-in radio show and a driver of divisive online discourse, has died.
JT2025@standwithjt:
Good riddance
@SusanM27004:
@SusanM27004:
Rex Murphy was a racist homophobe. …
@AndersonBooz:
The Rex Murphy who earned respect as a journalist died some time ago.
Fitting that a propaganda outlet mourn the loss of someone who had become one of their propagandists.
I mourned the passing of the real journalist Rex Murphy years ago. I will try to remember what he was when he still had a good reputation.
@mossgatherer_:
Just heard that the combative, hatemongering, racist, contemptuous Canadian pundit Rex Murphy passed away. He leaves no legacy, no impact but lingering bile. He spoke for bitter cruelty in the world and that’s all will remain of his many decades as a top billed name in news.
Johnny Halifax@JohnThomsumpin:
Lots of men have had their names live on. But that it no means make them great, or inspiring, or even worthy of respect. I too was a fan of Rex Murphy, but he lost the plot. Same goes for Jordan Peterson.
Bryson The Backup Gaytive@GaytiveB:
Rot in piss Rex Murphy.
@gosforthgal;
I concur.
@carpediembabe:
I certainly didn’t wish Rex Murphy ill, but I experienced a wee sigh of relief at hearing of his death.Me too, enormous relief. I found Murphy’s “journalism” intentionally dishonest, more like sitcom, crass, hurtful, damaging, cruel and dangerous to the marginalized.
He likes it! Hey Mikey!@MichaelIreton:
I know I’m venturing onto thin ice, but I’ve NEVER thought much of Rex Murphy. I always thought he was a fatuous blowhard, in love with his own supposed “intelligence”. The florid vocabulary was a cheesy gimmick. Alas, it worked pretty bloody well for decades.In my view, there are a lot of misogynistic racist bigoted incredibly ignorant and hate-filled Canadians that feed off cruel spew from people like Murphy, Jordan Peterson, Dildo Danielle, Steve Harper, Pierre Picklehead, Tamara Lich and the rest of her money grubbing Fucker Truckers (the insurrectionist copy cat convoy leaders, not those who earn a living as truckers or managing trucking firms) delighted to assault kids and health care workers, harm residents with 24/7 noise and toxic diesel fumes, prevent workers and businesses from accessing their jobs, and breaking the law for weeks and more … Look to the many hateful Canadians gleefully cheering on Zionism’s genocide, kidnapping, rape and torture of kids, and land and resource ($400 Billion worth) thefts of Palestinians. To me, those are the typical Rex Murphy-the-Liar worshippers. Canadians supposedly have a reputation for being “nice” but under that facade, there’s masses of cruelty and hate which is why vindictive lying evil politicians like Harper, Kenney, Picklehead, Dildo Danielle, Mulroney, Doug Ford are so popular and worshipped.
Leggy Del Pain@coffeeandvinyl1:
Good, Rex Murphy is gone. Which terrible Boomer do we get to be free of next?
PRM@PeeArrEmm:
I like that I found out about Rex Murphy’s passing in a tweet that was fuckin’ dunking on him.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
2023: Murderous Fuck Henry Kissinger’s Obit
